How Far Will They Fly?

That'll be the question we hope to be asking a lot over this season as this Cubs offense was certainly built with an eye toward the long ball. And as we fret over the early season power outage - four measly homers in eight games - I think we all know the chances of this team hitting 81 homers over a 162 game season are right around the odds that Mark Derosa hits forty homers this year (his current pace). I thought it would be fun to take a look at just how many home runs we could expect from this club. The prediction game is certainly not a perfect process but we can make some reasonable assumptions. For this exercise, I took the expected regulars and looked at their career best and career worst seasons, their Hardball Times projections and their three year averages when applicable. For career worst seasons, I just did a reasonable cutoff for the career worst in terms of games played. For example, Derrek Lee's worst season for homers would be his one homer in 22 games in 1997, but it's better to use the 17 homers he hit in 1998 when he played 141 games. But even in that case, as is with most of the career worst seasons they occurred early in these players careers and generally not indicative of their current capabilities. I also skipped over Derrek's 2006 season for the three-year averages, I just don't see how a 50 game season for a player who's played 155 or more games the previous six seasons is relevant. Everything else should be pretty self-explanatory, for Murton's three-year averages I just used the last two years naturally.

Name	Career Best	Career Worst	THT projection	3 Year Average
M. Barrett	16	8	17	16
H. Blanco	10	1	8	7.3
D. Lee	46	17	24	36
M. Derosa	13	3	11	8
C. Izturis	4	1	2	2.3
A. Ramirez	35	18	34	35
M. Murton	13	7	14	10
C. Floyd	34	11	20	21
A. Soriano	46	18	37	36.67
J. Jones	27	14	24	24.67
Total	244	98	191	196

First, we need to address the left-field situation as Murton and Floyd are set to split time essentially. Obviously we're not going to get 47 homers out of them which would match their career highs, but what can we expect? Their THT projections are for 468 (Floyd) and 522(Murton) plate appearances each and they won't be able to reach those if they end up playing left field together. So where does the big wheel stop on their home run projections? Time to break out the hardcore spreadsheet - common sense and best guess estimation. I think if the two do split time in left field, we can reasonably assume 25-30 homers between the two. If you're feeling pessimistic today, go with twenty. The same situation arises with Blanco and Barrett, but they've been splitting duties the last two years and have combined for 22 home runs each year. That makes the THT projections and the three-year averages quite reasonable and if Barrett ends up playing more this year, he should add a little to his total as Blanco's goes down, but the net effect isn't worth worrying about. So I would say that the last two columns seem quite reasonable for that group (191 and 196 home runs), subtract a few for the Floyd/Murton dynamic if you wish. But there are a few more Cubbies that need to be considered - the bench and pitchers.

Name	Career Best	Career Worst	THT projection	3 Year Average
D. Ward	20	7	13	11.3
R. Cedeno	6	1	8	3.5
R. Theriot	3	0	3	1.5
Pitchers	7	1	N/A	2
Total	36	9	24	18.3

Well Ward throws off the group here as he just won't get the playing time that he got in Pittsburgh that kind of throws off his THT projections and three-year averages. If he does get that playing time, it's probably because Derrek Lee's on the disabled list and that will just end up being worse for the team. Pitchers are a tough group to guess and if you're wondering where the career best and worst for pitchers came from, let me explain. Zambrano had six last year and Marquis had one each in 2005 and 2002. Hill, Lilly and Miller never have hit one and relievers aren't even worth looking at since the chances of them even getting up are just as slim as them hitting one out, thus seven is your career high. Z has hit at least one home run each of the last four years so I went with one as the career worst. It certainly could be replaced with zero though. But despite Z's six dingers last year, 1-2 is a more reasonable expectation for this season, so breaking out good old common sense and best guess estimation, I would say that anything over three from the pitchers would be a reach. So what's going to be the final tally for this club? Before we reveal the answer, let's look at the top marks for the franchise. Cubs Best Home Run Seasons as a Franchise 1. 2004 (235 -1st in NL) 2. 1998 (212 - 3rd in NL) 3. 1987 (209 - 1st in NL) 4. 2002 (200 - 1st in NL) 5. 2001 (194 - 8th in NL), 2005 (194 - 2nd in NL) There are six seasons there, four of which Sammy Sosa was prominently involved, another was 1987 and the last was the very forgettable 2005. "Juiced" ball or (alleged) "juiced" slugger for the most part. Fun times. But even so, 2004 was a down(ish) year for Sosa, much of it spent on the DL and he only hit 35 that season. No, the mark was set thanks to each and every position reaching double digits in homers (even the shortstops combined to hit 11) and a lot of help from the bench. So can this team challenge the 2004 mark? I say yes, but it's more likely they end up replacing the two, three, four or five spot. Of course, injuries or lack thereof will play a huge part in the final numbers, along with the wind direction at Wrigley. The final totals of the above tables came to: 280 for career best, 107 for career worst, 215 for THT projections (no pitchers included), 214 for three-year averages. And in case you're wondering, 264 by the 1997 Mariners is the MLB record (hmmm, another Lou team), 249 by the Astros in 2000 is the NL mark (a team that finished below .500). If I had to predict a final number using the above data and my new CSBGE (Common Sense, Best Guess Estimator) system, I'd go with 216, second best all-time for this franchise. That's not bad and would have been one short of top spot in the National League last year. Of course, as we learned in 2004, it's not just the homers, you need guys to get on-base, and I do think this team is going to be a bit better at it than years past, how much so though is for another post. I won't make it a contest, but feel free to throw in your predictions for total home runs in the comments.